How To Discover Your Customer’s Hidden Questions

Image by 10ch via Flickr

Some days ago I was searching for a workflow management software. I had to focus on an idea and need some help reorganizing my thoughts. I don’t know how, but google drove me to Compendium. What a great surprise I had! I was introduced to “a software tool providing a flexible visual interface for managing the connections between information and ideas.” as stated in the site. I focused on Dialogue Mapping and I like more the definition as a method to transcript discussions in a visual form.

The basic concepts underlying Compendium are quite simple, indeed. Every discussion has a question and needs one or more answers (or ideas in compendium slag). Every idea can have pro and con arguments, so that a comparative list can help to find the best idea. But, at the same time, every idea can open new questions and so on. It doesn’t find a solution by itself, obviously. But this software shows you “the flow of thoughts” in a structured way, helping you in finding the correct path to a solution.

I felt so curious that I decided to investigate thoroughly; I found this book Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems. I suggest you read this excerpt and this one. Are very instructive and definitely worth the time.

Now, a case study: imagine one customer of yours asking for a new function: she’s in the order processing office and  wants a button to create a pdf or, alternatively, to send an email. You ask why and she answers she needs to send a list to a colleague at the administration office so that he can perform a check. Apparently it’s a routine maintenance without connections to other procedures, so let’s go and modify.

But if you’d used Compendium, you’d be forced to begin your map with a question: the question your client asked herself and answered herself. The question was: “How can I check if the clients that have sent these new orders have exceeded their credit? My procedure can’t check”. Here we can have different ideas:

1. ask your colleague to check
2. activate a function of the accountant software to perform the check locally
3. let someone else check before the order enters the processing room

Every idea has pros and cons, as this image shows, but a visual map definitely help to understand all points of view and choose the better one. Sometimes (more often than thought) the customer has not a global view of the system and tends to solve her own compulsory problem. At the same time, the advisor has a global view of the system but ignores some details of the workflow and accepts the customer analisys. Compendium has the power to force you to think differently.

When you learn how to use Compendium, you see other interesting features: for example, you can attach all files or links to web sites that you like.

Another great characteristic is you can export your map in different formats:

1. xml
2. web outline: it generates one html page in a tree format
3. web maps: it generates one or more html pages in hyperlinked format;
4. power export: outline + xml compressed in a zip file
5. jpeg: it’s an image of the map, like this

Other useful features are present, like scribble pad or group working (using mysql).

Every time I use it, I learn something new.